IMMA 08/08/08

Went to IMMA yesterday, and saw some great work by an brazilian-german artist called Janaina Tschape. I loved her drawings and photography, but above all I was blown away by her video piece. Unfortunately a video which featured her piece on youtube was taken down, so I don't have access to anything but stills from it.



It was an underwater piece with four different panels playing simultaneously. In one part of the sequences, she was wearing a quite abstract black dress which reached out and flowed like tentacles across the screen. In another, she was wearing a similar dress but in contrasting palette; instead of black it was mainly white and almost transparent, and it became evident that the awkward shape of her body was due to the attachment of coloured balloons and other ambiguous shapes and entrapments.

Her work focuses on the idea of the myth, jumping from the natural to creatures that can be conjured up consequentally from its innate beauty. Find more information on her work on her website: www.janainatschape.net, where you'll find photographs of the exhibition at IMMA and accompanying writings. Also have a look at Sikkema Jenkins & Co.: http://www.sikkemajenkinsco.com/janainatschape_works.html. For her exhibition at imma specifically, go to http://www.modernart.ie/en/page_170733.htm.



Another artist I saw at IMMA yesterday was the spanish artist Miquel Barcelo. The exhibition was centered on 'The African Work' which demonstrates the influence his African surroundings have on his work when he goes there. He first went over, to Mali, in 1988. Although I did not enjoy his large scale paintings that much, I loved his use of mixed media and especially the water colour observational drawings that make up the majority of the work exhibited. Although the figures in the drawings are fairly abstract, they're still recognisable but stripped down to the bare essence of their form and colour. I was taken aback by the vibrancy of the colours, and his technique to suggest pattern and texture was impeccable. The pictures depicted women bathing, or washed over images of a crowd approaching the viewer on a presumable desert landscape. He also interfered with the physicality of the surface, such as what seemed to be burn holes, to suggest the texture and colour of smoke ascending from ashes. Here's his website: http://www.miquelbarcelo.org/ and here's IMMA's page on him: http://www.modernart.ie/en/page_170642.htm